Course:Hannibal (2013-2015)

CRWR 501P 003
Advanced Writing of Poetry
	Instructor:Dr. Bronwen Tate; Email: Bronwen.tate@ubc.ca; Office: Buchanan E #456;
Important Course Pages
	Inspirations & Influences;
Categories
	Sources of Inspiration and Influence Aardvark Book of Poems Book of Poems by a Living Poet Choufleur Conflicted, Ambivalent, or Antagonistic Feelings CRWR 501 People Encountered Before Twelve Essay Fiction Films Fox Gemini Music Orchid Otis Places Poem Composed Before 1945 Poetic Prose Sadcactussometimesblooms Song, Painting, Film, Etc. Souris Yarrow Yellow Silver

Hannibal is a psychological horror/thriller television series that aired on NBC from 2013-2015. It ran for thirty-nine episodes and started as a standard “monster-of-the-week” police procedural before developing into a campy and wonderful character driven series in the second and third seasons. Written and created by Bryan Fuller, the show follows the relationship between Will Graham, the FBI profiler from Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon, and the titular character Hannibal Lecter, in a world before Lecter was caught by the FBI for murder and cannibalism.

The show is such an unexpected joy for me because it becomes, throughout the seasons, a gothic romance. Graham is our gothic hero, lured by Lecter into exploring the darker urges Lecter thinks Graham has. Lecter is a corrupting influence, the Devil and Dracula rolled into one. Graham’s arc of losing all agency and then finding it again is satisfying to watch, in part, because he's a standard protagonist who turns into an anti-hero. The dialogue for the show is poetic and over-the-top, campy in its artfulness and the universe of the show has its own internal logic, not based in our reality beyond the backdrop of the FBI.

There's many motifs throughout the show but the most notable one is that of the “ravenstag”, a stag with inky black feathers that morphs into a skeletal humanoid figure, representing the rot at the centre of Lecter and Graham’s relationship. When Lecter is finally caught by the FBI, the ravenstag disappears and the motifs change as Lecter and Graham go from friends to enemies to accepting of each other and perhaps something darkly romantic. The queerness of the show is something that is inspiring to me as it represents the monstrous feelings I myself have had about my own being. It feels safe to explore in the theatre of television and I want to write something as formative for someone else as Hannibal has been for me.

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